TELIKOM has woken up from its long coma and is sweating profusely when Digicel offered far cheaper services, Opposition leader Sir Mekere Morauta said yesterday.
“Telikom was forced to cut prices and begin to focus on improving services. What has stopped Telikom from offering these in the past? Why now?”
Sir Mekere said this was because of the competition provided by Digicel.
He said this during budget debate when criticising the Government for not taking the opportunity provided by the windfall gains for reforms.
He said the public sector reform must not only involve the public service but also encompass State-owned enterprises.
Sir Mekere said the problems here were two fold, the first was to improve reliability, efficiency and affordability of existing services and to extend coverage to more places.
He said the fact remained that the Government did not have the financial, technical or management capacity to succeed in such a programme.
Sir Mekere said the Government’s so called rehabilitation policy was a delusion.